EvoBloggito

Why I’m abandoning a land line altogether: bye bye Qwest!

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Jun 15, 2011; Category: Communication; Tags: Business, Communication, Zeitgeist; 4 Comments

At the end of June, I’ll be abandoning Qwest service entirely, saving about $56/month on phone service. Not that $56/month is outrageous; it’s actually a good bit less than what I pay Tmobile every month, although there really is no comparison between what I can do on my Tmobile-powered Android and what I can do with the land line, which has become pretty useless. And $56 is way too much to pay for useless.

I used to think it was important to have a land line because along with it came a Yellow Pages listing. But in the past 2 years, I’ve logged the calls coming in on the land line. The average number of calls I’ve gotten on the land line each month during that period is between 15-16. Three of those are typically from two long-standing clients who seem to prefer that number to my cell phone (Marcie, Ted: call me on my cell!). About every 3-4 months I get a call from a new prospective client, indicating they found me in the Yellow Pages. At least 80% of those want me to fix a broken down website their nephew built for them in 2002, or something equally unattractive or unrewarding (I’ve learned the magic phrase that makes them go away: “we’re not the right people for that”). During the two years, I have not acquired a single new client who first contacted me on my land line or who first saw my Yellow Pages ad and then contacted me by other means.

By contrast, during that period I’ve acquired approximately a dozen new clients who contacted me at someone’s recommendation, who found me in a web search, or who became acquainted with me via social media. Monthly cost for those? $0. Math is not my strong suit, but even I can figure out that, in comparison, the Yellow Pages ad is not very cost-effective.

And the other 12-13 calls per month? People from India selling offshore programming and “web designing” services (why do always say “web designing” and not “web design?”). No kidding. I guess in India they assume web developers here are so busy that we need a lot of help, because they call and they call and they call. I understand they’re just trying to make a living, but I do get tired of telling them I’m not interested.

The other reason I have held onto my land line is so I can have a fax machine. But I realized recently that I have not needed a fax machine in more than a year, and probably could have emailed a scanned document saved as a pdf in its place. Faxing has become outmoded as a means of communication. It’s time to dump the fax machine and move on.

I’m looking forward to being done with Qwest. I expect it will feel a bit like it felt when I was able to replace Microsoft Office for Mac with Open Office: lighter, more flexible. And $56/month more in my pocket. And I can live without explaining several times a month that I don’t need web designing services.

Update 6/16/2011: This did not factor into my decision, but when I called Qwest to cancel as of July 1, I was able to reserve the land line number for one year for $65, during which time a phone message directing callers to my cell phone number will be played (I expect that means I will continue to hear from programmers in India, sigh…). If I decide I made a mistake during that 12-month period, I can have the land line restarted. It’s nice to have the fallback option, though I don’t foresee using it.

It’s Time for “Old Marketing” Types to Come Over to “New Marketing”

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Jun 26, 2010; Category: Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Communication, Marketing, New Rules, Zeitgeist; No Comments

Old Marketing used to just be “marketing,” before there was “new marketing” to serve as a comparison. Old marketing—which includes Yellow Pages adverstising, newspaper advertising, and all forms of broadcast advertising—is still valid for a lot of businesses. And an entire industry (advertising) came into being to support that kind of marketing. But it’s no longer the only game in town.

Since the internet became a place in which people could connect, marketing opportunities have sprung up in that space. As you well know if you’ve opened a browser in the last 5 years, all of the marketing on the internet is not being done well. In fact, some of it is pretty awful. But what would we expect of a medium in which the barriers to entry—in terms of cost and expertise—are so low? Often, it’s marketing by the lowest common denominator for the lowest common denominator.

So of course, the new marketing space is often ridiculed (largely an expression of misunderstanding and fear) by people who make their living in old marketing. Those people need to get over it. The internet is a legitimate marketing space for one reason: that’s where a large part of a lot of companies’ markets are spending their time, rather than reading newspapers or the Yellow Pages or listening to the radio or watching television (all declining industries).

Old marketers have some useful skills that could be put to use on the internet, once they take the time and go to the effort of learning the new rules. Once learned, these rules can be broken for specific reasons. Break the rules without understanding what and why they are, and crashing and burning is the likely outcome (Oh! The humanity!). And, of course, that’s what usually happens when old marketing assumptions are brought to the internet.

The opportunities that exist for companies and old marketing types on the internet exist not only because that’s where people are, but also because it’s not often being done very well. Better concepts, better copy, and better images that communicate better would be raise the bar for online marketing.

But I’m not challenging old marketing types to come over because they’re needed on the internet. Frankly, they’re not.

I’m challenging old marketing types to become knowledgeable, competent, and comfortable with internet marketing because if they’re not, they’re doing their clients a disservice. Presenting clients only with old marketing solutions is a little like being a caddy with only a driver and a wedge in the bag. And it’s also a good way to watch your own market shrink.

Having a website? Meaningless. Using a website? Priceless.

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: May 12, 2010; Category: Business, Communication, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging for Business, Entrepreneurs, Zeitgeist; 3 Comments

Most people think having a website has value. They’re wrong.

Lots of people and businesses and organizations have websites (although as recently as a year ago, only 37% of US small businesses had one).

But having a website is sort of like having a hammer. Just because you own one doesn’t mean you’re building a house, or even putting up a shelf. If the hammer sits unused in the toolbox, you might might as well not have a hammer, for all the good it’s doing you.

Websites are like that. They’re tools. Used properly, they can help you build a business or start a movement. Left un-utilized on your webhost account (never updated, no interaction with readers, etc.—you know the type), they accomplish nothing.

Primarily, websites are comunication/connection tools. Once you’re good at using your website for communicating and connecting (as with most tools, some practice is required for you to use it effectively: expect an occasional sore thumb), your website can also shoulder some of the burden of sales and delivery of goods and services. But first, you have to successfully use your website for communicating and connecting. (FYI, websites make very poor “look-how-impressive-we-are” tools, though that’s primarily how businesses use them.)

Most of us are reasonably good at dreaming and talking about what we would do if we had the means. We’re not nearly as good at following through when the means is right in front of us. “If I had a hammer,” the old folk song used to say.

Websites, particularly those on platforms like WordPress, are tools that provide us with the means to pursue our goals. But they have to be used. Ladies and gentlemen, pick up your hammers and let’s “hit it.”

Fear of Blogging, and the Opportunity it Creates for People Who Aren’t Like Most People

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 20, 2009; Category: Blogging, Business, Search/SEO, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging for Business, Change, Zeitgeist; One Comment

According to Seth Godin, there are two reasons people don’t buy (or do) things:

1. They don’t know about it.

2. They’re afraid of it.

If you don’t know about blogging and the substantial benefits it can bring to your business, that’s at least partly my fault. My business, and my mission, is to help businesses understand how and why to use blogging and blog platforms to grow their business. I’ll work harder at that: I promise.

The Psychology of Fear

I can detail all the advantages, show you examples of other businesses that have made blogging pay off, explain how much less money you will spend for the same or better results than you’re getting with your newspaper and radio ads, even plead with you (if I suddenly misplace my dignity); everything short of promising success. But at some point, you have to find the courage to do something different from what you’ve been doing, and different from what most people have been doing.

As the economy changed from orange alert (mild fear and wariness) to red alert (duck-and-cover NOW!), I had imagined that small and medium-sized business owners would be actively looking for something that would give them an edge. But I read an article (now long-misplaced) that suggested that the psychology of an economic downturn for most people is to hunker down and either do whatever they were already doing (but harder, with desperation), or to stop doing even what they were doing, while waiting for economic winds to blow more favorably. I can testify from the difficulty I’ve had convincing some businesses that blogging is at least part of the answer to their marketing dilemma in a down economy that this is the case.

Fear, apparently, is exaggerated in economic difficulties, and most people are even less likely to try something new, even if it holds the potential to overcome or mitigate the problem that’s the cause of their fear.

Now for the Opportunity

Here’s the good news for you if you’re even a little bit courageous: while your competitors are hunkered down waiting for the sun to warm their backsides again, you can get a jump on them. I’ve never talked to a business blogger who didn’t tell me they wished they’d started sooner. While you can’t start sooner than you start, you can start sooner than your competitors. Like most people, your competitors will wait until almost everyone is already on the bandwagon. By the time they’re figuring out "Step 1," you can be doing business with their ex-customers. Yup, it’s the law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest.

If I can help you with the issues you will face as you boldly go where few have gone before, please let me know. I can almost guarantee, those issues all have reasonably simple, easy-to-implement solutions.

The Social Media Revolution: Still Think It's a Fad?

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 5, 2009; Category: Marketing, Video, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging, Marketing, social media, Zeitgeist; No Comments

This video, from Erik Qualman of socialnomics.net, purposely looks and sounds a lot like the most recent version of "Did You Know", an earlier version of which was published on EvoBloggito in January 2009. The video above is about social media as a means of engaging customers. If you’re in business, you need to watch it.

FYI, the data sources for the statistics cited in the video are listed at www.socialnomics.com.